Cancer Genome Atlas

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis reached a new milestone in cancer research this month with the completion of a comprehensive analysis of the molecular underpinnings of the causes of the disease.

The National Institutes of Health funded the PanCancer Atlas project, more than a decade in the making. Biologists from more than two dozen institutions analyzed DNA from 11,000 cancer patients with 33 major types of the disease, including breast and pancreatic cancer.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Scientists at the Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine have identified 127 significantly mutated genes that they believe drive the development of cancer. This knowledge has the potential to lay the groundwork for new diagnostic tests and individualized treatment for different types of cancers, says Li Ding, assistant professor of medicine and assistant director at the Genome Institute at Washington University and the paper's senior author.

Researchers at Washington University used new technology to unravel the entire genetic helix for a subset of breast cancer, called basal-like, and found that it is more like ovarian cancer than other types of breast cancer.

The study’s co-Leader, Mathew Ellis, said that means techniques used to tackle ovarian cancer could be more effective than traditional methods for basal-like breast cancer.

“The more we understand about an individual breast cancer the more we can actually treat the patient accurately,” Ellis said. “I like to call this genome forward medicine.”